July 1916

Hello Inuit Panda readers. I have been neglecting you in favour of my First World War blog. If you are interested in such things, here are links to my posts there in July:

1/7/1916 Carnage on the Somme

2/7/1916 The Somme: counting the cost, planning the next steps

2/7/1916 Baranovichi: a Russian attempt to smash the Germans

3/7/1916 The Somme: a failed night attack

6/7/1916 The Somme: piecemeal Allied attacks continue

8/7/1916 The horror of the Somme comes home to Britain

9/7/1916 The battle for Mecca

10/7/1916 Italian mine war in the Dolomites

11/7/1916 Verdun: Knobelsdorf’s last throw of the dice

11/7/1916 Italy explodes its mine under the Austro-Hungarian Castelletto

12/7/1916 Verdun: the furthest German advance

12/7/1916 Austria’s brutal vengeance: the execution of Cesare Battisti

14/7/1916 The Somme: Rawlinson sends in the cavalry

15/7/1916 Verdun: the French push back

16/7/1916 Britain sends Egyptian help to the Arab Revolt

19/7/1916 Australian disaster at Fromelles

20/7/1916 The Somme: Britain and France go their own way

22/7/1916 Exit Sazonov

23/7/1916 The Somme: British attacks fail but Australian troops seize Pozières

24/7/2016 Pozières: Germany strikes back

25/7/1916 Brusilov’s offensive begins to slow down, Evert’s continues to fail

27/7/1916 As the Somme grinds on, politicians become restless but Haig remains confident

27/7/1916 Germany executes Captain Fryatt

28/7/1916 The Dada Manifesto and the Cabaret Voltaire

30/7/1916 The Black Tom explosion

30/7/1916 The Somme: new German tactics

image source:

Reconstructed image of British soldiers advancing from The Battle of the Somme (1916) (The History Learning Site)

China's funeral strippers crackdown

The BBC has reported on a Chinese clampdown on an increasingly prevalent practice at funerals. In China it is considered a mark of respect to the deceased to have large crowds attending their funeral. Funeral organisers often provide entertainment to encourage attendance. In certain rural areas funerals have gone so far as to lure in extra mourners by laying on strippers.

The authorities are taking a dim view of this new custom. Funeral organisers and exotic dancers in Hebei and Jiangsu provinces have been arrested and punished. However it is unclear whether this clampdown will be any more successful than previous attempts to eradicate this pernicious practice.

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Men hating women

I was already thinking of posting a link to a recent piece on the BBC news website about people (mainly women) who are murdered by their male partners when recent unfortunate events in the United States of America set me thinking more on the subject of male violence, in particular male violence against women. The following three articles are I think worth looking at.


Domestic violence: One month's death toll (BBC)

In the UK, an average of seven women and two men are killed by their current or former partner each month. To look behind the bald figures, the BBC has examined the cases of the various people so killed in September 2011. The month was picked because the relevant judicial cases are mostly completed.

I am curious as to whether the average of two men killed each month by former or current partners are killed by men or women. I am also curious as to what the comparable figures for Ireland are.


5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women (Cracked)

Cracked has a strange history. My understanding is that its origins lie in the print magazine of that name, which was Marvel’s knock-off of Mad. As time went on it escaped from Stan Lee’s clutches and made it to the web, where it mutated into a website with interesting and sometimes humorous articles about stuff. This piece on how mass culture teaches men to hate women by giving them unrealistic expectations is written in the jocular Cracked house style, which some may find off-putting, but it raises interesting points.


Joining the dots: From fairy tales to Elliot Rodger (Glosswatch)

[edit: The Glosswatch blog has since been marked as private, so you'll have to take my word for what the linked-to post says about fairytales]

Glosswatch is the blog of VJD Smith, who also posts on Twitter as @Glosswitch. In this post, written just after the Isla Vista shootings, she talks about reading fairy tales to her son (the same fairy tales she read when she was small), but seeing now a disturbing subtext of rapey creepiness in the old tales. Her overall argument is persuasive, though I am not so convinced that the story of The Princess And The Pea is about virginity. With this one, class seems more significant. The story seeks to convince the common folk that the nobility are magically sensitive and so are naturally fitted to rule. However, Ms Smith is bang on the money with the Princess and the Frog. Because I like animals, I always sympathised with the frog (and indeed was disappointed when he turned into a handsome man; see also the ending to Beauty and the Beast), but when the story is read again with the eyes of an adult, the frog comes across as disturbingly similar to a persistent date-rapist, albeit a tiny amphibian one.

She also mentions Rumpelstiltskin, focussing on the crazy king locking up and threatening to kill the heroine if she does not deliver on her father's outlandish claim that she can spin straw into gold (with the king eventually marrying the girl, presented as a positive outcome for her). Some fairytales have more resonance than others. The Princess and the Pea always struck me as ridiculous, even when I was small, but Rumpelstiltskin has always struck a chord. I think what makes it a great story is how for all there are horrendous characters in it (the King and the heroine's idiot father) there are two with whom it is hard not to sympathise. Anyone who has ever been in a seemingly hopeless situation will sympathise with the heroine when she faces death if she cannot spin straw into gold.

And then there is Rumpelstiltskin himself, the initially nameless sprite who helps the girl but at the promise of her first-born child, a promise she can only escape if she guesses his true name. I have never heard a version of the story that makes clear what the sprite wants with the child - does he plan to eat it, or enslave it? Or does he intend to adopt it or make it his apprentice, teaching it his secrets? Given that the heroine is married to a psychopath, it is easy to think that being brought up by a magical imp would make for a better start in the world than life with the child's natural parents. But of course, Rumpelstiltskin's secret is revealed and he departs empty-handed, leaving the child in the palace. Yet throughout the story he is a fair dealer, honouring his bargains and never promising something he cannot deliver.

image source (a gallery of covers of Ladybird Well-Loved Tales, which reminds me of the dubious sexual politics of so many fairytales, but also of ones like the Little Red Hen, a hymn to female self-reliance).

It's...

"It's Omar Sharif"

My Important Project

Noticing that this year would be the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, I started thinking about doing blog posts on the anniversary of key Great War events. Then the idea grew legs and I started thinking about doing more and more posts, ending up that my plan now is to set up a dedicated real time First World War blog to try and pass myself off as some kind of expert in that conflict. The basic inspiration for this would have to be the wonderful @RealTimeWWII on Twitter, only not as comprehensive (it is important to know your limitations) and based more around slightly longer but less frequent blog posts. To this end I have started reading more about the First World War, with a current particular focus on the July Crisis. The plan is to start a dedicated real time Great War blog, set to auto-post to a dedicated Twitter account, which will start from roughly Franz Ferdinand's assassination and them, like the real war, peter out.

I have started developing slight cold feet about all this recently, for a number of reasons. The most pressing of these is the realisation that, obviously, other people are going to be doing the same thing. There is already a @RealTimeWW1 on Twitter, live tweeting events in the run up to the big event (recently mentioning the bizarre event in which the wife of a leading French politician shot and killed the editor of Le Figaro, an event whose non-occurrence could have prevented the war). As someone prone to self-doubt and all that, the realisation that I would obviously be one of many people doing something broadly similar makes me concerned that my efforts would be less interesting than theirs, making my Important Project effectively a waste of time. The realisation as to how the Important Project has grown legs and turned into a Very Big Project has also made me increasingly conscious of what a big commitment it all is. But I am not going to stop now. Maybe a year into my Important Project if it turns out that basically no one is reading it I will give up, but for now I will soldier on.

I had some ambitious plans to travel to Sarajevo, either for the anniversary of Franz Ferdinand's assassination or, more likely, earlier in order to take photographs that could accompany a post on the assassination. As I became more and more ambitious I started thinking about perhaps starting off in Belgrade and travelling overland to Sarajevo, like Gavrilo Princip and his colleagues, and then taking the train from Sarajevo to Vienna to see Franz Ferdinand's last uniform in that city's war museum (and then take the train home, because I wuv trains). But sadly it looks increasingly unlikely that any of this will be happening. We have received notice here in Panda Mansions that our lease is not being renewed, so over the next while we will be looking for somewhere new and getting ready to move into it. There have always been a good few things wrong with this particular Panda Mansions and in many ways I have not warmed to it and I do not dread the prospect of living somewhere else. But house-hunting and moving are terribly time consuming and depressing business and I fear that I will need to dedicate so much time to all this that there will be no opportunities for continental or foreign jaunts for quite some time. And if rents are really sky-rocketing as much as they are reported to be then it looks like even after moving I will not be able to afford to travel anywhere.

Before moving I need to get rid of a lot of superfluous stuff, so the charity shops of Dublin may soon be being flooded with CDs by obscure artists no one is going to be that pushed about buying. I will probably get rid of some books as well, possibly even some boardgames. And I may even accept that I will never be playing some of those roleplaying games I have and get rid of them as well. All of this makes me sad. But my misfortunes are minor compared to those of the millions who fought and died in the First World War.

Links:

@RealTimeWWII (I cannot praise this one highly enough)

@RealTimeWW1

Gavrilo Princip

Franz Ferdinand

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Heaven Help Us If There's A War

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The March of Progress III: Are You A Parasite?

This guy called David Lowery wrote a piece ("Letter to Emily White", on the Wordpress blog Trichordist) about music downloading (by which I mean downloading music and not paying for it) and file sharing and stuff like that. It was a response to a piece on an NPR blog by an intern called Emily White who said that they never bought CDs and never paid for downloads but loved music and listened to it all the time. The piece was then widely read and triggered a lot of discussion about the ethics of downloading and all that. Lowery constructs a strong argument that free downloaders and file-sharers are leeching off the creative efforts of others and are contributing to the impoverishment of artists.

It is a good piece, though like most things it has its flaws. He mentions two artists who topped themselves, blaming financial concerns, but I thought this was an over-egging of the argument. The musicians he mentions had mental health issues and would hardly have been the first musicians to meet untimely ends. And if financial problems really were such a problem for them then even without downloading they were in the wrong career, as niche music has never guaranteed a secure income for its makers. He also seems implicitly to tag the file sharing and downloading as some unique vice of the current generation of young folk. I do not agree with this. People have always liked free stuff, and the current young folk are just lucky in that there is plenty of it available to them. I think my generation would have availed itself of free music if it had been available, and plenty of my age cohort have switched to free music once downloading became an option (where they have retained an interest in music).

But the overall point is clear and it is one with which I am broadly in agreement. People who download and file share may say they like music, but their behaviour is parasitic on those creating what they purport to love. I cannot tell people how to live their lives, but downloaders should examine the moral consequences of their actions.

You can read David Lowery's letter here. And here is the original post by Emily White, with a link off to a piece on the controversy triggered by the article, which mentions that David Lowery was a the songwriter in Camper Van Beethoven. I suppose everyone else knew this already.

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The March of Progress II: "The Word"

A magazine I read occasionally has folded: Mark Ellen edited music periodical The Word. I did not buy it too often, but I had a certain admiration for it. What was particularly impressive about it was its managing to break out of the Reviews and Interviews straitjacket that dominates such publications. As illustrations, consider the great on the squatting scene and its contribution to Britain's musical world in the last issue. Or a previous issue's insightful piece on the world of the session musician (a world that, like most interesting things, is now vanishing as the rise of cheapskate downloaders and their non-payment for music combined with the emergence of dirt-cheap synthesisers means that there is no longer the need nor the money for top-notch session musicians). There was also a bizarre article in an earlier issue on the feud that has split the world of air guitar competitions in two. And another one talked about the rise and possible future fall of merchandise as a money-spinner for musicians who can no longer earn a crust selling records.

I also liked the pieces they did on pop culture counterfactuals, where they imagined how things might have turned out if something had gone the other way, as it easily might have done. One of these was imagining the results of the mechanical shark in Jaws working properly. Because it did not work, Spielberg had to avoid showing the shark and so had to make the film a triumph of tension as people were stalked and killed by a hidden monster. But if the mechanical shark could be shown throughout the film then it would have been. The picture becomes just another run-of-the-mill monster flick and not an epoch-defining blockbuster. Possibly stretching it a bit, they see this as leading to the non-emergence of the summer blockbuster as a genre, with the likes of Star Wars being moderately successful but spawning no sequels. I think this then means that 70s cinema goes on forever, which counts as a result.

Another of their counterfactuals was to imagine the consequences of the record companies failing to agree a CD standard, resulting in the format failing to establish itself. Things then plod along, with the main result being that "Home Taping Is Killing Music" labels continue to appear on records.

There were lots of other good things. So farewell Word, you will be missed. At least by me.

image source

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Man Takes Off Clothes

The world has been astonished to learn that a man has taken off his clothes. The disrobing occurred in a hotel room, when the man was in the company of some young women. It is understood that at least one of the women also removed her clothes. A game of "strip billiards" may have led to the naturist outbreak.

It is too early to discover what ramifications this shocking incident of private nudity will have for the man's career and position in society.

For more on this important story see any newspaper or online news source.

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Man Goes To Restaurant

The BBC news website reports that owners of the Veer Dhara restaurant in St. Albans were astonished when a group of ten people came to the restaurant after phoning ahead to make a reservation. Among the group was a well-known actor, to whom the restaurant had apparently been recommended. It is reported that he wished to enjoy a relaxing evening out with his family. The actor drank sparkling mineral water and ordered spicy food, saying that he particularly wanted to try chicken tikka masala and something with lobster.

More on this important story.

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A Pretty Flower

The BBC has an interesting article on the Rorschach Test by one Mike Drayton. As you know, this is a test done with symmetrical inkblots, where the subject is invited to say what they think the inkblot shows. The test was originally developed by Hermann Rorschach, hence the name.

In popular culture, when someone is shown a Rorschach blot, what they claim it represents is meant to say something about their personality. So, if they say a picture represents a man having sex with a headless donkey then they are obviously some kind of deranged perv, while if they say the picture represents some happy puppies and kittens playing together they are a well-balanced individual. What I found interesting about the article was Rorschach never thought the test could be used as a personality test. Most psychologists now apparently share that view. Rorschach himself used the blots as a test for schizophrenia, as he noticed that schizophrenic patients often had very strange interpretations of them – not that they saw violent or sexual imagery in them, but that they saw things there that the images could never represent to non-schizophrenics.

The writer of the article then goes on to talk about how he uses the blots in his work to encourage reflection and to start people thinking and talking about themselves. Although he does not mention them, this reminds me of my own interest in Tarot Cards – not for divination but as an aid to imagination and inspiration, a tool for connecting to the subconscious.
Read the whole article here. Or listen to Dr Drayton's radio programme on the subject (link from there).

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Rorschach blots

More Public Notices

I mentioned the other day that some public notices have been appearing on the streets of Dublin. Here are two older ones that may or may not come from the same source. They are formatted a bit differently, notably lacking the header "Notice" or "Public Notice", so that it is not obvious that they are a notice. They also deviate from the previously mentioned examples in that they neither refer to the Irish constitution nor warn entities tha they are not mentioned in it. However, there is a certain similarity of tone that suggests at least the possibility of a shared origin.

First up we have this one, from the Euro Stability Thing referendum campaign, advancing the claim that the unelected European Commission makes Ireland's laws:

I am not sure that this is an accurate description of the EU legislative process.

Then there was this poster that also appeared during the referendum campaign:

Sadly, I did not make it to this public meeting, whose precise location was not specified.

If there are any further developments in this area, I will keep you posted.

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Public Notices

Someone has been posting up public notices in Dublin. They typically reveal that something this anonymous person does not approve of is not mentioned in the Constitution and so has no legal place in Irish society. First up he informed the Bar (by which I think the legal profession, particularly barristers, are meant) that there are no provisions for them in the Constitution and that they must leave henceforth.


Then it was revealed that income tax is also not mentioned in the Constitution, which means that you do not have to pay it if you do not want to.
I think this may not be a standard interpretation of taxation law in this country. I would urge people to seek the advice of a legal professional before acting on this revelation, but as the legal profession have been sent their marching orders it is hard to know who to turn to.

Most recently this person has posted a public notice stating the text of Article 41.1.1 of the Constitution, which deals with the family. However, the text differs from the actual English-language text of that article.


I await further instructions.

Important News

I have joined Twitter. I am called @ianmoore3000 there. You can follow me if you want. But you don't have to.

Overheard in Dublin #35

"Yeah bud, yeah. So what's your name anyway?"

"Barry… No, Mick. It's Mick."

Don't Be Afraid Of Your Fantazy

I am planning to go to Egypt later this year. The country has many sights – temples, pyramids, giant statues, places of religious worship… and Fantazyland. This is a theme park near Alexandria, where the entrance fee varies from seven to thirty Egyptian pounds a person, depending on how much respect the cashier plans to show you. It boasts many attractions, some of which may even be functioning correctly when you visit.

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Prince Philip Latest

The Duke of Edinburgh recently met some people, one of whom was a woman who was wearing a dress with a zip.

"I would get arrested if I unzipped that dress," commented the controversial member of the Royal Family.

More on this important story

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"The Call of Cthulhu - for beginning readers"

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via Nicholas

Big Brother Is Watching You

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more my other blog action

in an astonishing series of developments, I have posted for the second time in a couple of days on my other blog. If you want to read what I have to say on the Palestinian's bid for UN membership, click here